Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Online Music: Grooveshark denies the withdrawal of its Android

In an open letter, the vice president of music streaming service Grooveshark, Paul Geller, denies the withdrawal of its application to the Android Market, the distribution system for mobile applications from Google and shelves. April 6, the application had been withdrawn by Grooveshark Google's catalog of applications, following a complaint by the Recording Industry Association of America, the U.S.

equivalent of the SACEM. Grooveshark was so surprised that withdrawal, arguing that his service was perfectly legal, and explaining that Google had not provided any explanation on the reasons for this deletion. "We need to distinguish between the law and licensing," said Paul Geller. "Laws are passed by Congress.

Licenses are trade agreements. Grooveshark is completely legal because it complies with the laws passed by Congress, but we have not signed any agreements with record labels [for now]. " According to the Digital MillenniumCopyright Act, which governs copyright issues online in the United States, the liability of online service is limited by the action of beneficiaries: the hosts are required to remove such contents reported to them as contrary to law, but they are not forced to take preventive measures.

Grooveshark also said to have negotiated distribution agreements with three major record labels American and several independents, and request to Google - and Apple - to make its application available again. The difficulty in concluding agreements with record companies is, according to the American press, the main reason for the delay in launching a music service by Google, which the Web giant has alluded several times without ever announce officially.

End of March, Amazon decided to launch its Cloud Drive, a system for storing and distributing MP3s, without negotiated agreements with all rightholders. Sony had then threatened the online retailer to trial.